Not that long ago, when I reviewed Iron Maiden’s
\nThe X Factor<\/i>, I mentioned that I had declared about two
\nyears previous that it was time for the pillar of British heavy
\nmetal to retire, but was glad they hadn’t after hearing the first
\nouting with Blaze Bayley.<\/p>\n
Well, I’m going to reverse myself again, as Iron Maiden continue
\nto take their fans on one of the worst rollercoaster rides I’ve
\never been on musically. Their latest album,
\nVirtual XI<\/i>, all but kills the progress the band had made
\njust one album ago, and makes me pine all the more for the classic
\ndays of Maiden.<\/p>\n
First, the good: It’s interesting to note that the most success
\nIron Maiden has this time around is in the shorter songs. The
\nleadoff track “Futureal” is a decent start to the album, while
\n“Lightning Strikes Twice” also shows a lot of promise.<\/p>\n
It’s also interesting to note that of the three songs I thought
\nwere the highlights of the album, two of them were co-written by
\nBayley (and one of them, “Como Estais Amigos,” had no trace of
\nSteve Harris anywhere in it). Bayley (who sounds a lot like Ian
\nGillen this time around) has yet to really come into his own with
\nIron Maiden, but his songwriting is a brighter light on an
\notherwise dim album.<\/p>\n
Problem number one with
\nVirtual XI<\/i>: too much keyboard, not enough shredding guitar
\nsolos. For a band that once proudly displayed in their liner notes
\nthat they were using no keyboards, Iron Maiden have almost become
\nfar too dependent on them nowadays – so much so, in fact, that both
\nDave Murray and Janick Gers fail to impress me at all with their
\nguitar work.<\/p>\n
Problem number two: lyrical repetition. Problem number three:
\nlyrical repetition. Problem number… well, you get the idea. Many
\nof the songs feature choruses that on one, maybe two, passes, would
\nbe decent. But when they’re continually repeated like a
\nfour-year-old who just learned his first swear word, it makes you
\nwant to rip the CD out of the player. How many times on “The Angel
\nAnd The Gambler” were they going to force Bayley to sing: “Don’t
\nyou think I’m a saviour \/ Don’t you think I could save you \/ Don’t
\nyou think I could save your life”? Gotta think this is the fault of
\noriginal member Harris, who seems to definitely be the leader of
\nthe band nowadays.<\/p>\n
Final problem with
\nVirtual XI<\/i>: this barely qualifies as metal per se. Hard
\nrock, yes, but there’s not a lot of edge to the music — the
\nguitars are terribly underplayed, the thundering bass has almost
\nbecome an afterthought, and Nicko McBrain’s drumming is starting to
\nrely on the ride cymbal again. Songs like “Don’t Look To The Eyes
\nOf A Stranger” and “The Clansman” don’t improve with repeated
\nlistens — I know, ’cause I’ve tramped my way through this disc
\nfour times, and it’s not getting any better.<\/p>\n
I really wanted to like
\nVirtual XI<\/i>, but this is one of the weakest Maiden efforts
\nsince the atrocious
\nSeventh Son Of A Seventh Son<\/i> (uh, oh, I can feel the flame
\nmail comin’ in with that comment). I had been reading the metal
\nnewsgroups around the time this album came out, and a couple of
\npeople suggested that some new blood had to be injected into Iron
\nMaiden. Bayley was supposed to help, but even he’s starting to be
\nweighed down in Maiden’s modern-day mediocrity. The trouble is, if
\nyou replace everyone but Harris, I’m afraid you still have the same
\nproblem, just with different players. My solution for the next
\nalbum: Don’t allow Harris to control the songwriting or the
\nproduction. Give Bayley, Gers and even Murray the room to be
\ncreative, and let Harris be a side man again. Methinks the results
\nwill be much better.<\/p>\n
Iron Maiden has been fighting to create an album that would top
\nefforts like
\nPowerslave<\/i> and
\nSomewhere In Time<\/i>. On
\nVirtual XI<\/i>, they take a huge step in the wrong
\ndirection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5725],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-35923","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-iron-maiden","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35923"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35923"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}